Leo Tolstoy's Quotes

The chief difference between words and deeds is that words are always intended for men for their approbation, but deeds can be done only for God.

Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal.

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.

War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves.

The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded.

Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity.

Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself.

We lost because we told ourselves we lost.

To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can't eat it.

All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.

He never chooses an opinion; he just wears whatever happens to be in style.

War on the other hand is such a terrible thing, that no man, especially a Christian man, has the right to assume the responsibility of starting it.

We must not only cease our present desire for the growth of the state, but we must desire its decrease, its weakening.

The law condemns and punishes only actions within certain definite and narrow limits; it thereby justifies, in a way, all similar actions that lie outside those limits.

If there existed no external means for dimming their consciences, one-half of the men would at once shoot themselves, because to live contrary to one's reason is a most intolerable state, and all men of our time are in such a state.

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.

If you want to be happy, be.

The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.

I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.

Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.

A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite.

Music is the shorthand of emotion.

All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.

Boredom: the desire for desires.